


They Kiss, The End

by eunoise



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-13
Updated: 2013-07-13
Packaged: 2017-12-19 08:59:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/881922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eunoise/pseuds/eunoise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The Aphrodite Cabin isn't known for the battle skills or their smarts or their green thumbs or for anything really besides standing in a corner and looking pretty but if there is one thing we know and know well, it's romantic comedies and associated tropes." Slight AU after the Last Olympian in which Percy and Annabeth don't get together at the end and a certain cabin decides to take matters into their own hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	They Kiss, The End

**Author's Note:**

> **Hello there! So this is a repost and rewrite of my very first fanfiction that I lost the files for (not my fault) and deleted (my fault and I'm kind of regretting it now). I also posted this on Fanfiction.net. Anyway, I hope you like it!**

_She didn't say anything to me. She just stood there and her face was showing an emotion I never liked seeing on her. She looked sad and I knew for certain it was my fault. Annabeth shook it off so quickly I almost believed it was all in my head._

_"Sorry, Percy." She said quietly, not looking me in the eye. "Didn't mean to interrupt. See you later, okay." And she walked away, slowly at first, before breaking out into a run._

_The only thing keeping me from running after her was the iron grip someone had on my arm. I turned to look at who was holding me back._

Percy sat up in his bed, rubbed his eyes in an attempt to wake himself up, and it failed apparently because a few seconds later, Percy let out a big yawn. The numbers: 4:01, shined out from his alarm clock and he plopped back down onto his bed with a groan. Why did he wake up at such an awful, ungodly time anyway? He had vague memories of a familiar bell-like laughter that sent chills down his spine. Bad dream, maybe? Oh well, it probably wasn't anything important if he couldn't remember it. Percy curled up underneath his warm blankets to ward off the cool nighttime/early morning air and soon nodded off back to sleep, dreamless for once.

…

The Aphrodite Cabin was abuzz with activity. Strange when it was so early. Even stranger when you remembered the Aphrodite Cabin was the Camp's biggest advocate of beauty rest (no, the Hypnos Cabin didn't count. They advocated, well, they were never awake long enough to advocate anything, but their support of sleep in general was sort of implied.)

"Okay, Rose Marie, you know your lines?" Marilyn glanced up from her pink, spiral bound notebook, to look at her sister. Rose Marie nodded, brunette curls bouncing. Rose Marie, like any other child of Aphrodite, resembled an angel with her curled hair, delicate features, and slender build, but the almost evil look smirk transformed the angel into an imp, a very beautiful imp, but an imp nonetheless.

"Oh, hey, Annie-Beth!" Rose Marie said in an exaggerated, valley girl accent, making her sound even more obnoxious than the entire Aphrodite Cabin combined. "Like, have you seen the Percy guy around? Gods, he is sooooo cute!"

Marilyn nodded with a nearly identical smirk. "Perfect. Obnoxious enough that it'll make Annabeth want to kill you but not too far. Just right."

"Oh this is gonna work out great." Rose Marie said. Just then, the temporary Cabin leader, Evangeline, walked up to the two girls.

"How's your part of the plan going?" she asked in a hushed voice and leant in even though everyone in the Cabin already new about the Operation.

"Perfectly." they said in unison.

"Good, because your part needs to go perfectly." Evangeline couldn't emphasize it enough. This was Selina's last plan before she died. It  _needed_ to be spectacular. It needed to be able to get into the Book.

"Don't worry, Evy, if somehow  _I_ managed to mess up my part I can always go to plan B." Rose Marie said in total confidence while fluffing up one of her curls and checking herself in her mirror.

"Let's stick with plan A shall we?" Evy responded dryly. Evy straightened her back and looked the part of an authoritative Queen. (Drew looked like she wanted to kill Evy) "Lights out everyone. We all need our rest. The Operation begins tomorrow at seven o' clock sharp!"

Rose Marie slipped underneath her covers and went to sleep.

Operation Percabeth is go.

…

"These are the Cabins." Annabeth was leading (by herself, thanks Percy) a newly arrived group of demigods around the courtyard and pointed out each of the Cabins and explaining their history. Normally, this would get her an eye-roll and a whiny  _Annabeth_ but these kids, who were obviously very new to the world of the Greek gods, paid close attention to her every word. And Annabeth wouldn't be ashamed to admit that she was soaking up the rapt attention to her words like a sponge. "Now, originally, there were only Twelve Cabins. Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Ares, Dionysus, Apollo, Artemis, Hermes, Demeter, Aphrodite, Hephaestus, and, my mother's Cabin, Athena, but then, a few months ago, after the Second Titan War,"

"A few  _months_ ago?" asked one of the older kids, a bright-eyed, blonde boy asked.

"Well, that explains a lot." said a similar looking girl contemplatively.

"We'll get more into the Second Titan War later. At the moment, I'm just giving you a tour. So anyway, after the War, the gods made a promise to give every major and minor god with demigod children a Cabin and to claim them once they turned thirteen."

"But I'm sixteen." and red-headed girl said confusedly.

"That's a new rule. Before then, a lot of demigods were running around unclaimed, but now they  _have_ to claim you."

"Well  _that_ makes me feel wanted." said the previously perky girl with blonde hair muttered, her smile transforming into a sad frown.

"Don't take it too hard. Things are different now." Annabeth said, a feeling of pride for Percy welled in her chest. She glanced around the pavilion, looking for him. Ugh, that Seaweed Brain! He was supposed to help her with the tours! "So anyway, each of the Cabins houses the demigods of the gods they represent. For example, the gold cabin is the Apollo Cabin and the Artemis Cabin is the silver one."

"Does Artemis have any kids?" Asked the red-headed girl (she should really learn their names). "I think she would make an awesome mom!"

"No. Artemis swore to be a virgin forever, so no kids. The Cabin is sort of an honorary thing, like Hera's Cabin." Which kind of made some of the minor gods mad.  _They don't even have any demigod children. Why should they have Cabins while my kids are being dumped in the Hermes Cabin._ "But whenever Artemis's Hunters are in town-"

"Annabeth, watch out!" Robin of the Apollo Cabin, yelled out in warning. Annabeth just narrowly dodged a stay arrow from the archery field by jumping back into one of the new kids.

_("Ow." the tall, lanky, blacked haired boy muttered. "Sorry." she replied.)_

Robin ran up to Annabeth worriedly, bow in hand and quiver slung on her back. A girl with beautiful brunette curls walked gracefully behind Robin, also with a bow and quiver, looking bored and glancing at her perfectly manicured nails.

"Oh gods, Annabeth. Are you alright?" Robin held Annabeth by her shoulder and looked over her body, searching for any arrow related injuries. When she could find any gaping, bloody holes on Annabeth's front, she turned her around and checked her back.

"Robin, I'm fine." Annabeth sighed exasperatedly. Really, like she couldn't dodge an arrow.

"You sure?" Robin asked and double checked Annabeth's front. Annabeth swatted Robin's awkwardly roaming hands away. "Alright then." Robin turned to the brunette, who had found a miniscule imperfection in her left pinkie finger and reached into her shorts pocket, presumably to get a nail file.

"Rose Marie! What did you think you were doing?" Robin turned away from Annabeth and Annabeth used her lack of attention to escape Robin's scrutinizing stare.

"Now, next up on our tour, we will be visiting the Camp's Oracle."

"We have an Oracle! That's so cool!" The blonde exclaimed.

"Like, hey, Annie-beth." Rose Marie had to run to catch up with Annabeth's group. Ew, sweat, not good for her hair. Evy said she needed to look  _perfect_ and not that she couldn't pull off the whole sweaty and disgusting look, but still, sweat is kinda gross. "Sorry about the arrow thing." Rose Marie apologized flippantly. "Anyway, have you, like seen that super-hot Percy guy. I know you two are, like, best friends or whatever."

Gods, Annabeth hated Aphrodite girls. Well, yeah, not  _all_ weren't this awful but…geeze.

"No, Rose Marie." Annabeth tried hard not to sound angry with her in front of the new kids who were watching them (or in the boys' case, watching, Rose Marie, though staring would be a more accurate term) with interest. "I haven't seen him."

"Rose Marie! Get back here!" Annabeth and the others head's turned to see a very angry, and very muddy Robin (the girl, not the bird) stalking towards the group. Her eyes promised murder and her bow drawn, pointed right at Rose Marie. Oh boy.

"Well, Annie-beth," Rose Marie said nervously. "It's been nice talking to you!" Rose Marie broke out into a run and the physical effort coupled with the summer heat cause her to start sweating. Gross!

After a few minutes of running away from the angry Apollo camper, just barely dodging arrows, and screaming from both Rose Marie (of fear) and Robin (of anger) Rose Marie's siblings came to run interference

_("Oh, Robin dear, your hair! Your beautiful hair! Come on, let's get you cleaned up. What? Rose Marie pushed you into a puddle of mud and bugs? Oh I'm sure she didn't mean it. What reason would Rose Marie have to push you like that? She's a good kid, honestly. Robin dear, please stop struggling! You can't kill my sister! Help! Robin, what are you doing with that arrow!?")_

"Oh, Rose Marie," Evy sighed. "What happened this time?" Rose Marie intended to respond that Robin was blowing things completely out of proportion and it was only a bit of mud and a couple of bugs, she's probably just in a bad mood because her boyfriend went home from camp early but Evy didn't give her a chance. What was that called? A rhetorical question? "Now get yourself cleaned up. You look like a mess." Evy shooed Rose Marie away and walked away, muttering to herself about setbacks and Phase 3 having to be pushed back a couple hours.

When Rose Marie walked into the Aphrodite Cabin bathroom and looked into a mirror, she decided Evy didn't know what the  _heck_ she was talking about. Despite the sweat, dirt, and shallow, giant paper cut-esque cut on her arm, she still looked pretty hot, if she said so herself.

Evy sighed for what felt like the hundredth time today while she waited impatiently for Rose Marie to get out of the bathroom, impatiently tapping her foot and every few seconds , looking down to check her watch. ( _Now she understood her father's pain._ ) Everything was  _not_ going according to plan. First, Annabeth got saddled with tour guide duty when she wasn't scheduled for it for another week. And then Ricky and James dropped the candles we got for the big romantic finish! At least Sophia managed to find a way to make the cracks work in our favor.  _("Gives 'em a rustic look, see?)_  And then there was Rose Marie…

Evy loved her siblings to death but sometimes she wanted to wring their little necks until they saw stars, which was a completely un-Aphrodite impulse but at the moment, Evy was too overworked, stressed, and sleep deprived to care.

Evy stood in front of the memorial they set up for Selina's section of the small memorial they had for all the Aphrodite children who had- had died in the war. A picture of Selina, eyes bright and smile blinding, with Charles stood out in the center of all the photographs ( _of Anton, of Tabitha, of Jane, of Frederick, of…)_  and the candles and the flowers. A few tear escaped Evy's eye and she quickly wiped it away before they had a chance to ruin her makeup.

_This is for you, guys…_ she thought, her tiredness making way for her resolve.

The door to the bathroom opened and there stood an immaculate Rose Marie, every curl back in place. She smirked. "I'm ready for my close up."

Evy shook off the depressing thoughts and and said, "Well good. Your big scene is coming up next."

…

You know that feeling when you wake up in the morning and feel well rested for the first time in years? Yeah, Percy knows that feeling and it is glorious.

Percy let contented sigh escape his lips and savored this wonderful feeling a little while longer. He stretched his arms and let out a yawn while he glanced over at his clock.

You know that feeling when you realize it is  _not_ the morning and in reality it's actually two 'o clock in the afternoon and your late?

Yeah.

"Oh my gods!" Percy yelped and scrambled out of bed.  _Annabeth is going to murder me, Curse of Achilles or no Curse of Achilles._ Percy quickly went to the bathroom and got changed. A small part of his brain thought he had put his shirt on backwards but then quickly realized he didn't care  _because Annabeth was going to kill him._

Percy rushed out of the Poseidon Cabin and just narrowly crashed into an Aphrodite boy.

"Sorry!" Percy called over his shoulder and then Percy, who was not looking where he was going at the time, crashed into something solid and then he was on the ground. He looked down on what he fell on and saw he landed on top of another Aphrodite camper.

Percy thought her name was Lily or Daffodil of Violet or something. "I am so sorry!" he apologized. The Aphrodite camper ( _maybe it was Petunia?)_ just smirked and said, "Don't be." And pulled Percy's lips to her own.

It wasn't unpleasant, per say. Just…awkward. Yeah, it was awkward. Percy just sort of laid there with his eyes open while she ( _Peony? Iris?)_ …did stuff…with her tongue. Yeah.  _Annabeth is going to kill me even more now. I can just imagine her reaction._

_**You left me alone with the new kids so you could make out with some Aphrodite girl! You asshole! I never want to see you again! I'm gonna go to the Underworld and make out with Luke. Hmph.** _

_Yeah, she would react like that,_  Percy thought,  _more or less._

Percy stayed there like a complete moron for another few second before he moved to push the girl off of him. "Um…" he started. What do you say in this situation?  _Thanks, I guess but please never do that again. Would that work?_  Before he was able to say anything other than 'um' though, he heard a gasp. Percy looked up and saw Annabeth. Percy got up and looked at the ground and rubbed the back of his neck. "Umm…" He braced himself for the pain she would manage to inflict upon him despite the fact he was pretty much invulnerable ( _oh wait, she knows my weak spot. Crap.)_

But instead of hitting him in the small of his back, like Percy thought she would, she just stood there with a sad look on her face which she quickly got rid of like it wasn't even there. Percy looked down at Marigold ( _?)_  then back up at Annabeth, who was still just standing there ( _please just say something!),_ and then quickly scrambled to his feet.

"I can explain!" he started. She held her hand up to stop him.

"Sorry, Percy." She said. "I didn't mean to interrupt. See you later, okay?" and Annabeth walked away before quickly breaking out into a run.

Percy tried to run after her, stop her, hold on to her, apologize, and the only thing stopping him was the vice-like grip of the Aphrodite girl ( _Daisy? Sunflower? He couldn't bring himself to care.)_ on his arm. He pulled his arm away and ran after Annabeth, who he saw run into the Athena Cabin.

He opened the door but was prevented from going in by two Athena boys holding knives. "Can I-?" he began.

"No." Isaac said.

"But-"

" _No._ " Lewis said a little more firmly.

"I just need to-"

"Get out! Annabeth said she didn't want you here." Isaac glared.

"In the words of Gandalf, 'you shall not pass'!"

And they slammed the door in his face.

…

Percy slid sat on the limb of a tree he and Grover were on friendly terms with, Holly, and lightly banged the back of his head on her tree. "I'm a moron, right? I don't know why, but I am. And Annabeth is  _never_ going to speak to me again. Because I'm a moron whose brain doesn't work." He slid his back down the tree, barely registering the rough tree bark rubbing against his skin through his t-shirt. His arms dangled uncomfortably in the air of the sides of the branch.

Grover looked up from his pan flute to his best friend incredulously. "You seriously don't know why you're a moron?"

"Thanks, man." Percy said sarcastically, peering down at his friend on a lower branch. "You're a great friend."

"Sorry." Grover said sheepishly. "But, you  _seriously_  don't know?"

"Know what?"

"You know, Juniper's been making me watch a lot of chick flicks lately..."

"Don't lie, you watched the Notebook entirely of your own free will."

"And they usually follow the same format: Boy meets girl, boy and girl hate each other, boy and girl are forced into wacky misadventures, they obliviously develop feelings for each other, everyone sees it but them, they stop being oblivious, they kiss, they live happily ever after, the end. Unless it's based on a Nicholas Sparks novel, then everything gets sad but that's beside the point."

"What  _is_  the point?" Percy asked impatiently.

"The point is Percy, in yours and Annabeth's relationship, the only one stuck in the 'oblivious' part is you. You and Annabeth are in love with each other!"

"I-uh-bah-pfft." Percy sputtered out. "I thought, because she-crush on Luke, then death happened, I thought-"

"She got over that a long time ago." Grover said. "Listen most people, and by most people I mean everyone but the Aphrodite Cabin, wanted to let this 'thing' happen on its own but it's been five years and, no offense, watching you be an idiot is getting old."

"Gee, thanks Grover."

"Sorry, but it's true."

"I just don't want to mess up our friendshi-"

"You are  _not_ about to say you're going to ruin your friendship!" A voice from the bushes screams. Startled, Percy and Grover jump out of the tree and Percy pulls out Riptide. "That's too cliché even for the Operation!"

" _Rose Marie, be quiet, we're trying to be sneaky!"_ another female voice loudly 'whispered'.

"Yeah, Cordelia, we can pretty much give up on the sneaky thing now." Said yet another voice, male this time, from the bushes.

"Get out of the bushes and show yourselves!" Percy yelled. Out of the bushes pops up Rose Marie, Cordelia, and their brother, Don.

Percy pointed his sword at Rose Marie and all three of them held their hands up in the universal sign of  _please don't stab me._ "You! You're the girl who kissed me!"

"If I say yes, will you stab me?"

"Why would you do that?" As many people do, Percy often makes gestures with his hand while he talks (and yells) unfortunately, Percy often has a sword in his hand. Grover barely escaped the conversation that day with his life.

"Well, in one of Silena's earlier drafts of the operation she wrote down  _'two clichés made a right'_ so we figured a jealousy plot might work." Don shrugged.

"Well it didn't work, whatever it was!"

"No, no, it definitely worked." Cordelia nodded. "I mean, it prompted yours and Grover's little heart to heart here." she nodded towards the tree the two were sitting in a few minutes ago. "The Aphrodite Cabin isn't known for the battle skills or their smarts or their green thumbs or for anything really besides standing in a corner and looking pretty but if there is one thing we know and know well, it's romantic comedies and associated tropes."

"Also, we are very well known for our matchmaking skills." Rose Marie added. "Thanks, Grover, by the way for explaining the basic structure of the average romantic comedy. Anyway, we got sick and tired of watching you two dance around each other so we decided to take matters into our own hands. Long story short,"

"We came up with Operation: Percabeth," Don came up to him and grabbed hold on Percy's left arm.

"We're ten minutes behind Evy's schedule." Cordelia grabbed his other arm. "She's going to be so mad. She's kind of a perfectionist, you know. Total control freak."

"And I don't know why we just didn't do this in the first place." Rose Marie finished. And Don and Cordelia, surprisingly strong despite their heritage proceeded to drag Percy to the Aphrodite Cabin who was protesting all the way.

"Hey, stop, where are you taking me, let go of me." Percy yelled.

Rose Marie turned to Grover with a big smile on her face. Grover looked stunned for a second before snapping out of it.  _Juniper's prettier,_ he thought. "Thanks for your help, Grover."

"Anything in the name of love." He said. Rose Marie's smile grew bigger. She skipped over next to Grover and planted a kiss on his cheek.

"Aw, you're so sweet. Juniper's a lucky girl." Rose Marie turned around and ran back to the Aphrodite Cabin. "You ever need relationship advice, feel free to come to the Aphrodite Cabin. See you later, Grover!"

Grover touched the spot where Rose Marie's lips touched and stood there with a love-struck look on his face for a minute before shaking his head.  _Don't mess with Love Magic, Grover,_ he thought and then he walked over to Juniper's tree.

…

"Oh, this will just not do!" Evy fumed as she took in the clothes Percy was wearing. Don and Cordelia had forced him into the Aphrodite Cabin and sat him down in a chair. Evy circled around his chair, walking very deliberately around him and scrutinizing him. He was suddenly reminded of those nature documentaries he would sometimes watch when there was nothing to watch on TV late at night where big cats would stalk their prey before lunging for the animal's throat.

He's pretty sure he's had nightmares of this exact situation ever since Travis and Conner got trapped in the Aphrodite Cabin and they came out three days later wearing skinny jeans and with highlights in their hair that still haven't faded away. Katie Gardner will never let them live it down.

"You've had this t-shirt for how long? Since you came to camp? Look it's all worn and it has holes in it." She pulls part of his t-shirt up to his eye level so he would see the gaping hole in it.

"I've been meaning to get that fixed!" he said. No he hasn't.

"And look at his shorts!" she tells her cabin mates, gesturing to said articles of clothing. "Blue plaid shorts and argyle socks! Blue shorts with an orange shirt? An orange shirt that is also inside out! " She's getting into his face now, glaring at him directly in the eye and it's pretty safe to say he's never been more scared of an Aphrodite girl in his entire life. "Did you get dressed in the dark this morning? It physically hurts to look at you." She hissed. He's not that big into fashion but he has to admit, that kind of hurt.

Evy about faced to look at her brothers and sisters. "Ladies and gentlemen, we have some ways to go. Let's get him up and looking pretty in," she looked down at her watch, "ten minutes. Can we do that?" The Aphrodite Cabin cheered and Percy's never seen them this fired up for anything since the Hunters of Artemis came to Camp.

The next ten minutes is a blur of creams being applied to his skin, brushes being pulled painfully through his hair, clothes being taken off of him and put back on, usually accompanied by the words: " _No that's so last season!"_ or  _"What are you doing?! It doesn't go with his eyes!"_ or  _"We're trying to make him a more fashionable version of himself not an Abercrombie and Fitch model_!"

Five entire minutes are spent trying to make sure his hair is properly disheveled.

What.

[ _"Guys, does it even matter!" Percy yelled as he is, once again, stripped. (Was that a camera flash?) "Messy is messy isn't it?"_

" _Ugh, you don't know anything!" Evy fumed._ ]

Ten minutes later, Percy stood in the middle of the Aphrodite Cabin wearing clothes that he probably already owns but were probably of better quality than all of the clothes in his closet and his hair is perfectly disheveled. Evy took a step back and looked at him with a disconcertingly similar look in her eyes to the Athena Cabin's 'I Can See Three Hundred Forty Eight Different Ways to Kill You Where You Stand Right Now' look.

"Eh, I can live with it." Evy finally said. She looked back down at her pink and silver wristwatch, "Sorry, Sophia," she turned to look apologetically to look a girl holding up a box of candles in broken glass jars. "We're going to have to nix the candles. We only have five minutes to get Percy to the beach."

"Wait, what for?" Percy asked. Evy sighs.

"In the romantic comedy business, this is known as the climax in which the two main characters meet in some sort of romantic or meaningful location, in this case the beach, and declare their feelings for each other. They kiss. They live happily ever after. The end. Now here," Evy handed him a few notecards. "These are some suggestions for what to say. You can memorize them on the way." Evy grabbed his hand in no longer unsurprisingly strong grip (he will never underestimate the Aphrodite Cabin again) and dragged him out the door. "Look how much time you've wasted, now we only have two minutes! This just isn't my day."

"I know the feeling." Percy responded.

…

The Athena Cabin has a certain nickname that has been the bane of its existence since the nickname's inception: the Nerd Cabin. Sometimes it was the Revenge of the Nerds Cabin depending on whether how violent they had been recently, usually during Capture the Flag. It's annoying but they've embraced the title in recent years and whenever she's annoyed with the nickname she remembers the one time they had spent two entire months running experiments on the proper form for skipping rocks and the maximum number of times a rock can skip before gravity decides to, and she's quoting one of her sister's reports here, 'be a bitch'.

However, she's too distracted by her thoughts to remember what the proper rock skipping form was and gravity was 'being a bitch' so what she was doing was less skipping rocks and more throwing them into the ocean and accidentally hitting naiads in the head.

"Sorry!" she said for the millionth time tonight. The naiad glared at her and she resigned herself to the fact that she's going to wake up the next day covered in seaweed and smelling like fish.

Annabeth is smart and anyone who said otherwise were most likely deeply regretting their actions at the moment but her intelligence doesn't really help her deal with what is known as her 'emotional side'. In fact, it might have even hindered it, but it didn't really take her that long to realize she was falling in love with her best friend (she really should've seen it coming). And she was thinking that Percy might return her feelings but all then all that stuff happened with Rachel and then Rose Marie and… Annabeth sighed. She's the daughter of Athena, goddess of wisdom, and here she was, obsessively thinking about some boy like an Aphrodite girl. Sometimes she thought her life would've been a lot less complicated is she just became a Hunter of Artemis. Boys just mess everything up.

"Uh, hey, Annabeth." Annabeth turned around in the middle of another throw to see Percy.  _Gods, he's cute,_ she thought. He's wearing different clothes than this morning and she's pretty sure he's wearing skinny jeans _Looked like he got the Aphrodite treatment,_ she noted and an uncomfortable feeling settles in her stomach. "Listen, I'm sorry about what happened this morning-"

"It's fine you were late, everyone's allowed to sleep in once in a while. The group was pretty small so it wasn't so bad." She said

"I'm not talking about being late, though I am sorry about that I set my alarm and everything. I'm talking about the thing that happened with um, what's her name, uh Rosemary."

[ _In the bushes where Rose Marie and Evy are hiding, Rose Marie sighs, "Close enough."_

" _Shush!"]_

"It was a big misunderstanding! She kissed me and my brain just sort of stopped working-"

"You don't need to apologize for kissing Rose Marie." Annabeth interrupted. Though she suddenly felt lighter when she heard Percy wasn't the one who initiated the kiss. "It's not any of my business who you kiss. If you want to date Rose Marie, fine by me." She turned to walk away.

"No, wait, Annabeth!" Percy said and he ran up in front of Annabeth, preventing her escape. "I don't want to date Rose Marie, I-uh, I wanna date you." The last few words were said in a mumble and Percy ducks his chin, not looking Annabeth in the eyes. "They kiss. The end." He said to himself. Somehow along the way to the beach those words had kept repeating in his head.

"What did you say?" Annabeth asked.  _Kiss?_

Summoning all his courage (really, he defeated Kronos, telling a girl he likes he should not be this hard in comparison), Percy leant down and he finally,  _finally,_ kissed Annabeth while their lives are not in mortal danger.

Immediately, Annabeth smiled and leant into the kiss and the uneasy feeling in her stomach went away and suddenly she's just really giddy. She wrapped her arms around Percy's neck and he placed his hands around her waist and she all she can think about was how he tastes like salt water and the color blue.

[ _They kiss._

The end. ]

_Epilogue…_

"Oh, I love a good love story!" Aphrodite gushes from Olympus, looking down at her children's success story. She pats her companion, Ares, repeatedly on the shoulder, waking him up. "Oh, Ares, wasn't that the sweetest thing?"

"Yeah, whatever." Ares grumbles. Why does she always make _him_  watch this stuff? Eros likes this kind of stuff too, doesn't he? Mother, son bonding, it'd be great.

...

"...I still hate you, you know. My son's feelings for your daughter changes nothing."

"Your son's 'feelings' for my daughter makes it worse. I thought she would have known better than to get involved with your spawn."

"I don't recall hearing any complaints when my 'spawn', as you refer to him as, saved Olympus!"

"Oh, please. Your little idiot would have died a hundred times over if it weren't for my daughter!"

"Poseidon, Athena, could you please take your argument outside the throne room. Really, it's been well over two thousand years, when will you two learn how to let things go?"

"That's rich coming from you, brother! Holding grudges isn't just a trait of Hades, you know."

...

"You know, we probably could have just given Percy the whole 'you're in love with Annabeth' speech and then shoved them in a closet together or something and gotten the same result..." Rose Marie said as they watched Percy and Annabeth cuddling in front of the campfire as the money from the betting pool the Stoll brothers set up was exchanged between campers. So far Rose Marie gained one hundred drachmas and lost ninety and Evy had gotten two hundred and lost nothing.

"Yeah, I guess we could have." Evy said distractedly as she counted her money.  _If the Travis swindled me out of my money I will ruin his chances with Katie!_  "But it wouldn't have made as good of a story as it did now would it?

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